How much does a .NET developer make in Poland?

Money can be a sensitive subject, especially in classic corporate business. As always things are a bit different in IT.

It’s quite common and desirable nowadays for computer-related job offers to have known salary ranges. Time is money,  as they say, so wasting your time for a job that has rates below your expectations or recruiting a person who will quit right after reveling the salary is just nobody’s business.

Don’t waste each other’s time. Put the money on the table.

I made a research based on around 100 up-to-date job offers (from last two months) for .NET developers in Poland with known salary ranges. Let’s check it out..

..but firstly few words about specifics of the Polish programmers market.

 Permanent vs contract

Currently two models of employment are popular:

1. Permanent job – classic model of employment with paid vacations, maternity and sick leaves. Employer handles all taxes and social insurances. Easy, safe, but less flexible and less paid.

2. Contract – self employment, more flexible way with higher rates, but contractor has to handle all tax and social insurance matters. Two types of contracts can be specified. Contracts paid by the hour and contracts with fixed monthly payment (with vacation time included).

Form of employment depends on individual preferences and company policy (e.g. banks do not like contractors). But one thing is crucial considering which to choose, contractors earn more.

Wanted or not

Currently In .NET world most wanted are full stack developers with strong web programming skills – mostly ASP.NET MVC and JavaScript (Angular, Knockout).

Almost all offers were for on-site jobs, sometimes with possibility to work remotely one or two days in a week. 100% remote jobs are still uncommon in Poland, unless you are a Sharepoint developer. As an admirer of remote work I hope it’ll change. And I think it will, because soon enough there will be a remote developer or no developer.

OK, let’s get down to business.

Money

Amounts mentioned below represent:

• Standardized monthly salary for full time job (8h/day)
• After taxes
• Including 20 vacation days per year

I’ve divided salaries into two groups, juniors and seniors. If you’re a regular dev your rate should be somewhere in-between.

Juniors

• Experience required: No experience or 1+ year for higher rates (students are welcome)
• Lowest: 1700 PLN (435 USD)
  Highest: 5500 PLN (1407 USD)
• Average: 3500 PLN (895 USD)
  Median: 3200 PLN (819 USD)

(per month after taxes)

If you are a .NET newbie willing to work in a big city you should easly earn around 3000-3500 PLN per month. I myself started on 3rd year of studies and my salary was about it. If you want to know more about my road to being a developer check out my dev story.

Seniors

• Experience required: At least 3 years, mostly 5+ years
• Lowest: 5500 PLN (1407 USD)
  Highest: 12000 PLN (3071 USD)
• Average: 8800 PLN (2252 USD)
  Median: 8300 PLN (2124 USD)

(per month after taxes)

What’s interesting is that there were no offers for seniors with more then 5 years of experience required. Polish market seems to be still young and not quite there yet comparing to for example UK, where frequently there are offers for seniors with experience of 7, 10 or 15 years.

Hourly rates

Often, at least for senior developers companies offer raw hourly rate.

At the end of the month you get paid exactly for how many hours you’ve worked. No paid holidays, vacations or sick leaves. It’s quite convenient though, because your salary is higher and you can decide whether you take a vacation or you rather spend your money on something else.

Highest rate during my research was 110 PLN/h (28 USD) for a senior (before taxes).

Cities

Based on my research (offers from last two months with known salaries) most jobs and highest rates you can find in Warsaw (capital) and Cracow. Quite a lot of offers are also for Gdańsk, Poznań and Wrocław.

All cities (ordered by number of job offers):

1. Warszawa
2. Kraków
3. Gdańsk
4. Poznań
5. Wrocław
6. Bydgoszcz
7. Szczecin
8. Łódź
9. Bielsko-biała
10. Białystok
11. Lublin

That’s about it for now. See next time!